Supervisors: Professor Ofer Arazy & Doctor Uri Hertz
Thesis Title: Choosing Between Human and Algorithmic Advisors: The Role of Responsibility-Sharing
Thesis Abstract: Algorithms are increasingly employed for providing advice and recommendations across various domains, including entertainment, transportation, investments, healthcare, and more. Often, algorithmic advisors provide more accurate predictions when compared to human advisors, yet people may prefer humans as a source of advice. Research has attempted to shed light on the factors influencing advice takers' choices, pointing to constructs such as the advisor’s competence or trustworthiness. In this study, we focus on another essential driver of advice taker’s preference to receive a recommendation from humans/algorithms: their perception of responsibility - namely, psychologically offloading the responsibility associated with the decision’s potential consequences. We hypothesize that controlling for the effects of competence and trustworthiness, responsibility is an essential factor influencing why humans are preferred over algorithmic advisors. Experimenting with tasks in two domains - medical and financial - participants were asked to choose an advisor (human or algorithm) and rate the advisor’s perceived responsibility. Our findings show that human advisors were perceived as more responsible than algorithmic advisors and that the perception of responsibility influenced the selection of the advisor. Furthermore, we found that hindering the ability to offload responsibility affected the extent to which the advisors were perceived as responsible (primarily for human advisors). Making the decision alone or within a group was not found to be influential for this decision. In sum, our findings point to the role of responsibility perceptions in deterring advice-takers choices. We discuss implications for theory and practice.
PhD Title: Advice taking from algorithmic advisors when facing social dilemmas
About me: A serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of several successful start-ups. I hold a BA in Economics & Management, another BA in Psychology, and an MBA. Most of my work revolves around the study of technological innovations and their impact on human society, on which I lecture and write in my futurism blog.
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